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Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia
I'm a simple parent, living a real everyday life.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Some Malay teachers in Bagan Serai are “going mad” as they cannot handle teaching Mathematics and Science subjects in English, claimed a state assembl

The Star:
Thursday February 26, 2009
Teachers going mad teaching subjects in English, claims rep
By RASLAN BAHAROM
TAIPING: Some Malay teachers in Bagan Serai are “going mad” as they cannot handle teaching Mathematics and Science subjects in English, claimed a state assemblyman .
Dr Khalil Idham Lim Abdullah (Titi Serong) said the teachers themselves had to take English classes to improve their command of English.
While they are still grappling with the language, they are required to teach their students as well, said Khalil, who was chairman of the Perak Backbenchers Club in the former Pakatan Rakyat-led state government.
“The teachers themselves have a poor command of English. How do we expect them to teach their students?” he asked in his speech after a briefing on the subject at the state PAS headquarters in Jalan Air Kuning on Tuesday.
Some teachers, he said, “have simply gone crazy” because of this, likening the matter to the blind leading the blind. He claimed the minimum passing mark for both subjects were lowered to ensure that only a rosy picture was painted of the move.
Earlier, the gathering was told by Malaysian Translators Association president Associate Prof Abdullah Hassan that a big gathering is scheduled to be held in front of Istana Negara at 2pm on March 7 to protest against the teaching of Mathematics and Science in English.
Prof Abdullah said the argument that the usage of English would provide better job opportunities could only hold water if there were plenty of job openings.


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Doesn’t this say it all?!
Just look at how bad the state of Our English is when even qualified teachers don’t speak English?!
And your solution is to quit?!!!!! Not to improve our English but to just Quit?! Great!
“Good Job“!!! now let’s see this scenario below:
If my child is bad in.. hmmm… let’s say geography, she’s very weak in this subject, say, I’m helping her as it’s my duty, but I am not well verse in geography I only have the very basic knowledge like if you ask me is America a continent I’ll say yes if u ask me what is the capital of America I will need to get back to you, do my homework 1st. Therefore, it drives me “mad” to keep teaching her geography as I’m not good at it.
Then I decide, ok let’s stop studying Geography, I’ll let my kid watch national geographic once a week and that’s good enough.
I do not need know more on Geography and when my kid is older if she decides to work in an industry that needs geography like a travel agent or a pilot, or shipping, or geography teacher, or geologist, any industry related to geography then she can go take lessons if not then she doesn’t need to know much.
This is basically what the article below tells me. For me personally I would do the following:-
If it shows that I’m need to be good at something totally alien to me so that I can do my job more efficient, I will make sure I do some home work too and I will go for whatever new courses my boss sends me to and if I feel I’m still not competent enough I’ll flood my boss with requests to send me for more courses so that I will be competent! I mean after all, the bosses are the once who suddenly change the rules I still need to do my job but I cannot do it efficiently if I lack the new knowledge.
I mean if as a teacher you think you can’t teach a dog new tricks then you better not be a teacher!
As they say: One is never too old to learn.

1 comment:

MarinaM said...

I totally agree with you. I thought that was a strange article too. Do you think the Chinese and Indian teachers are going 'mad' too or just the Malay ones?

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